A Few Thoughts on This Fake Catholic Outrage

I'm going to have more to say about the overall political impact, real and imagined, of the leaked e-mails from the Clinton campaign tomorrow, but I thought I'd highlight one particular item that seems to have everybody's chasuble in a knot on Thursday. One of the leaks contained an e-mail conversation between Clinton campaign spokesperson Jennifer Palmieri and John Halpin, back in 2011, when they both worked for the Center for American Progress, which has become rather like the Clinton campaign's rec room these days.

Anyway, the two were discussing the state of Catholic voters. Warning: we are going to link to The Washington Timesnow, only because it has the best accounting of the substance of the conversation.

In the exchange, Mr. Halpin mocks media mogul Rupert Murdoch for raising his children in the Catholic faith and said the most "powerful elements" in the conservative movement are all Catholic. "It's an amazing bastardization of the faith. They must be attracted to the systematic thought and severely backwards gender relations and must be totally unaware of Christian democracy," Mr. Halpin said. "I imagine they think it is the most socially acceptable politically conservative religion. Their rich friends wouldn't understand if they become evangelicals," Ms. Palmieri responded. "Excellent point," Mr. Halpin wrote back. "They can throw around 'Thomistic' thought and 'subsidiarity' and sound sophisticated because no one knows what the hell they're talking about."

In truth, there was throughout the last two decades of the 20th century an attempt by conservative Catholics to ally themselves with the most politically active splinter of American Protestantism, which was at that point only about 15 years removed from calling the Pope "the whore of Babylon." This alliance made no theological sense, of course. But the groups shared a certain attitude toward ladyparts and the ladies who have them that made them kindred spirits. This was how the late crank Richard John Neuhaus could host a symposium in First Things in which armed sedition was given a theological plausibility.

Some of our authors examine possible responses to laws that cannot be obeyed by conscientious citizens—ranging from noncompliance to resistance to civil disobedience to morally justified revolution. The purpose of the symposium is not to advocate these or other steps; it is an attempt to understand where the existing system may be leading us. But we need not confine ourselves to speculating about what might happen in the future. What is happening now is more than disturbing enough. What is happening now is a growing alienation of millions of Americans from a government they do not recognize as theirs; what is happening now is an erosion of moral adherence to this political system.

It didn't start with Trump, folks. Trust me on this.

It is no accident that this revival of conservative Catholicism arose during the reactionary papacy of Pope John Paul II, the authoritarian aspects of which Papa Francesco is trying to unwind, much to the dismay of people to whom the Church's authoritarian aspects are its most delightful features. At about the same time, we saw people like the late Robert Novak and Newt Gingrich taking on the faith.

Central to this was an Opus Dei priest named Father John McCloskey, who ran a Catholic information center on…wait for it…K Street in Washington. Among his other works, McCloskey became the baptizer to the stars of the American political right. It was he who brought Novak, Larry Kudlow, and Sam Brownback to Holy Mother Church, and Brownback's sponsor was Rick Santorum. Back when I was writing for The Boston Globe Magazine, I wrote about this movement within Catholicism and spent a great deal of time with McCloskey, whose worldview was even further out than Neuhaus's was.

He is talking about a futuristic essay he wrote that rosily describes the aftermath of a "relatively bloodless" civil war that resulted in a Catholic Church purified of all dissent and the religious dismemberment of the United States of America. "There's two questions there," says the Rev. C. John McCloskey 3d, smiling. He's something of a ringer for Howard Dean -- a comparison he resists, also with a smile -- a little more slender than the presidential candidate, perhaps, but no less fervent. "One is, Do I think it would be better that way? No. Do I think it's possible? Do I think it's possible for someone who believes in the sanctity of marriage, the sanctity of life, the sanctity of family, over a period of time to choose to survive with people who think it's OK to kill women and children or for -- quote -- homosexual couples to exist and be recognized? No, I don't think that's possible," he says. "I don't know how it's going to work itself out, but I know it's not possible, and my hope and prayer is that it does not end in violence. But, unfortunately, in the past, these types of things have tended to end this way. If American Catholics feel that's troubling, let them. I don't feel it's troubling at all."

It was this, I believe, this sort of Catholic white-nationalism that Palmieri and Halpin were addressing, albeit in a clumsy way, and if high-rent Catholics are going to play these games in the political arena, it is not being anti-Catholic at all to talk about what a crock of beans they all are.

This has not stopped the usual suspects from bellowing about the sudden pain in their fee-fees. Josh Marshall's joint has a good roundup of the professionally outraged. Speaker Paul Ryan, the zombie-eyed granny-starver from the state of Wisconsin—who is one of those people who really doesn't know what he's talking about when he talks about subsidiary, as the Jesuits at Georgetown pointed out to him four years ago—interrupted his pensive walks along the Rock River to jump in. From The Washington Examiner:

"If anything, these statements reveal the Clinton campaign's hostile attitude toward people of faith in general," Ryan said. "This is the United States of America — for centuries, people fled to our shores to find refuge from religious persecution. All Americans of faith should take a long, hard look at this and decide if these are the values we want to be represented in our next president. If Hillary Clinton continues to employ people with biased and bigoted views, it's clear where her priorities lie."

In related news, Paul Ryan is still endorsing Donald Trump for president.

And, of course, El Caudillo del Mar-A-Lago, having less shame than he has sense, came barreling down the center aisle toward the altar. Fortune was trailing in his wake.

Campaigning Wednesday in battleground Florida, Trump said Clinton's team had been "viciously attacking Catholics and evangelicals." "Anybody of religion, I really think you have to vote for Donald Trump," he said.

And then, before anyone could stop him, he dashed over to the statue of the Madonna and tried to put his hand up her skirt.

A Part of Hearst Digital Media
Esquire participates in various affiliate marketing programs, which means we may get paid commissions on editorially chosen products purchased through our links to retailer sites.